Rewind 8 years.

[Rev]

Just one example of the damage one man has caused to this club. 

8 years ago we were demolishing BHA in a play off semi final.

We headed en masse to Wembley, hoping to gorge on the Premier League riches. 

Then the man with the reverse midas touch threw his hat in the ring, and look where it's led us. 

We've been relegated to Division 3, we don't own anything other than 5 contracted players, and if Rooney is to be believed we're in the most critical 24 hours of our clubs history, with no guarantees of survival.

Meanwhile, on Sky Sports, Brighton are finishing off their 5th consecutive season in the top flight with a humbling of Man Utd!

It's hard to imagine a starker contrast in the two clubs fortunes, and it's down to one person alone.

 

[May Contain Nuts]

Indeed. Richard Keogh has a lot to answer for.

[DarkFruitsRam7]

It won’t be long before people are making very real threats to him and his family I’m afraid.

[YouRams]

3 minutes ago, DarkFruitsRam7 said:

It won’t be long before people are making very real threats to him and his family I’m afraid.

Wouldn't condone it but imagine some of the other fan bases around the country how theyd react, we've been very very accepting of everything that's happened, too accepting you could say!

[Warwick Ram]

6 minutes ago, YouRams said:

Wouldn't condone it but imagine some of the other fan bases around the country how theyd react, we've been very very accepting of everything that's happened, too accepting you could say!

I wouldn’t harm him. However, non stop protests outside his house all day and all night so he cannot sleep or have moment’s peace would be good.

[Rev]

13 minutes ago, DarkFruitsRam7 said:

It won’t be long before people are making very real threats to him and his family I’m afraid.

Disgusting if they do. 

Leave his family out of it.

[Sparkle]

I’d like to rewind more than 8 years if I could - oh the things I would do ?

[cosmic]

The bloke is so full of himself he probably feels zero remorse over where we’ve ended up. It will be someone else’s fault (it always has been), rather than his total incompetence.

Cannot believe we’re still having to talk about him. He washed his hands of the club but is somehow still lingering around. Absolute poison. 

[Archie]

We were a sustainable club too, living within our means, building a competition team and turning a profit. 

Seems a lifetime ago...

[Premier ram]

1 hour ago, Rev said:

Just one example of the damage one man has caused to this club. 

8 years ago we were demolishing BHA in a play off semi final.

We headed en masse to Wembley, hoping to gorge on the Premier League riches. 

Then the man with the reverse midas touch threw his hat in the ring, and look where it's led us. 

We've been relegated to Division 3, we don't own anything other than 5 contracted players, and if Rooney is to be believed we're in the most critical 24 hours of our clubs history, with no guarantees of survival.

Meanwhile, on Sky Sports, Brighton are finishing off their 5th consecutive season in the top flight with a humbling of Man Utd!

It's hard to imagine a starker contrast in the two clubs fortunes, and it's down to one person alone.

 

great post mate , Mel has really shafted this football club

[Tyler Durden]

That's cos they had Chris Hughton ?

[Tamworthram]

58 minutes ago, DarkFruitsRam7 said:

It won’t be long before people are making very real threats to him and his family I’m afraid.

Personally, I'd be very surprised if there were any "real" threats rather than stupid comments from moronic keyboard warriors.

[IslandExile]

1 minute ago, Tamworthram said:

Personally, I'd be very surprised if there were any "real" threats rather than stupid comments from moronic keyboard warriors.

Any moronic threats to Mel or his family would not help the situation at all.

[Tamworthram]

9 minutes ago, IslandExile said:

Any moronic threats to Mel or his family would not help the situation at all.

Oh I agree and am I’m certainly not condoning them. I’m just saying I don’t think they would be “real” threats. Anyone one making such threats, whether real or not,  should be traced and prosecuted regardless of whether they are a dangerous psycho or just some spotty teenager. 

[wixman1884]

That was on my 32nd birthday and we went to the pub at lunch after. I was gutted but felt so optimistic about the club and where we were going. If we could just keep those players together and get Thorne signed we'd be onto something special. How little i knew of what was to come. The last 8 years have been an absolute travesty.

The work that was done by Clough and McLaren was completely obliterated. 3rd division team, no stadium, no players. 

Travesty.

[CornwallRam]

9 hours ago, Archie said:

We were a sustainable club too, living within our means, building a competition team and turning a profit. 

Seems a lifetime ago...

No we weren't. We were losing about £8m a year and the ownership group were split - some wanting to invest more to push for promotion, some completely fed up of wasting their money on a costly investment with no chance of a return. 

That's why Mel was bought in - to add a separate line of investment outside the GSE group, which was paralysed by an agreement that each investor would answer 'cash calls' proportionately to their holding. 

My view is that Wembley 2014 marked a watershed. As it turned out, Mel's ego and incompetence led to a massively wasteful and unfocused period of overindulgence which has driven us to the edge of a precipice. However, I think had GSE remained, there would have been a gradual decline from a complete lack of investment. Dwindling crowds and eventual relegation were, IMO, the inevitable outcomes of GSE remaining.

Hopefully, they would have found a different buyer, but let's not forget that GSE as in investment vehicle was failing massively - which I believe is why Andy Appleby couldn't raise the funds to actually make a bid this time.

[G STAR RAM]

10 minutes ago, CornwallRam said:

No we weren't. We were losing about £8m a year and the ownership group were split - some wanting to invest more to push for promotion, some completely fed up of wasting their money on a costly investment with no chance of a return. 

That's why Mel was bought in - to add a separate line of investment outside the GSE group, which was paralysed by an agreement that each investor would answer 'cash calls' proportionately to their holding. 

My view is that Wembley 2014 marked a watershed. As it turned out, Mel's ego and incompetence led to a massively wasteful and unfocused period of overindulgence which has driven us to the edge of a precipice. However, I think had GSE remained, there would have been a gradual decline from a complete lack of investment. Dwindling crowds and eventual relegation were, IMO, the inevitable outcomes of GSE remaining.

Hopefully, they would have found a different buyer, but let's not forget that GSE as in investment vehicle was failing massively - which I believe is why Andy Appleby couldn't raise the funds to actually make a bid this time.

As a bit of a counter to this, its worth noting that GSE were still in charge the year we got to Wembley. 

[CornwallRam]

6 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

As a bit of a counter to this, its worth noting that GSE were still in charge the year we got to Wembley. 

Yes they were. However, my understanding is that they were struggling to fund losses at that point as the investors had started to refuse cash calls. It would not have been stable after Wembley, it would have been selling the better players and borrowing money to keep things ticking over.

Getting to Wembley was, IMO, a bit of a fluke. Nigel built a team on a shoestring but was too cautious to get the best out of it. McClaren and Simpson got the best out of the players, but later events showed that they weren't very good a adding their own players.

Off field, something similar was happening. Glick came in with a 'moneyball' plan, but it turned out to be wasteful - there were reasons why players were in decline, and bringing them in 'cheaply' with a view to making a profit when their decline was reversed simply left us with lots of crocks. When Appleby realised that this was failing, Glick was tasked with cost cutting. He cut Nigel's promised budget and tried to bring down costs by driving FFP through the EFL. 

The problem was that cost cutting produced boring football and FFP was a disaster - not least due to increasing parachute payments. Our crowds were dwindling and we seemed to be getting further from promotion. 

Glick was replaced by Rush. Rush convinced Appleby that more investment was needed. Nigel got some cash to spend and the football improved. However, the increased demands on the investors didn't go down too well and they started to refuse the cash calls - just as the wages and amortisation losses were increasing.

GSE ownership was in trouble, despite the happy accident of 13/14 - which is why Mel was needed at the time.

[Crewton]

We'd have been promoted in 2014/15 but for 3 factors : the negative vibes around McClaren being linked to the Newcastle job and the awful timing of injuries to all our DMs, Chris Martin and, for a couple of key games, having no central striker available and some hideous "luck" with refereeing decisions. By the time the last game against Reading came around, team spirit and confidence had been completely eroded by all those events. 

Edited May 9, 2022 by Crewton